By Camille Daniels

Representation is an issue that is talked about often in various occupations. In Country Music, the issue of being seen in regard to race is something the ABC News special Country Strong highlighted.

The night before the Country Music Awards in November, an ABC News special aired that involved a roundtable and external interviews with various Country artists like Luke Bryan, Jimmie Allen, and Ashely McBryde. This lifted the curtain on how their industry was impacted by the events of 2020, mainly COVID-19, provided any newcomer, fan, or complete stranger the chance to learn about the artists themselves and what the year meant to them. 

In the segment of the special talking about race, through the backdrop of the Black Lives Matter protests in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, the audience learned of the musicians’ thoughts about it. 

“That’s what I feel like was the benefit of Covid: there was no distractions, no sports, concerts, so you forced to see it, and forced to deal with it, and you find out what kind of person you are. Whether you admit it or not, does this bother me or it doesn’t it?” Jimmie Allen said.

“You have to deal with it,” Ashley McBryde said.

To make it even clearer for those who may not have been able to swallow the reality of the moment, singer Karen Fairchild, member of Big Little Town, said it was like removing a band-aid. “The blinders were ripped off.”

Black Country musician and 2018 The Best Shot singer Jimmie Allen is new to the Country Music scene. In the last few years, he has expressed his thoughts in interviews more so than songs about being Black in Country music. In short, it has been far from easy to be taken seriously. It is why when he was one of four artists to sit down in a “roundtable” discussion at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville with Darius Rucker, Ashley McBryde and Charlie Worsham, Allen told Rucker in a tearful confession how essential Rucker was to success of Allen’s career.

“I don’t think you understand what you mean to me. You made it possible for a guy that didn’t fit in a lot of places, because people that look like me weren’t into what I was into, and the people that was into what I was into didn’t look like me,” Allen said. 

It was Rucker’s very presence, his visibility along with the groundbreaking career of the late Charley Pride, one of the first African American male Country music artists to have a long-standing career, that aided Allen along his journey as a Country music artist.

Visibility is not the only way in which the issue of race was touched on in the special. To go further in how much it is an issue, the audience needed to look no further than hearing from artist Mickey Guyton, a solo African American woman Country singer whose song Black Like Me was released during the summer of 2020. The song helped Guyton make Grammy history as the first African American woman nominated for a solo performance in the Country music genre.  

“If you think we live in a free land, you should try to be black like me,” Guyton says in the song. The song is refreshing given that it’s from a genre that has not been known to make a sound on the subject of race, but now is speaking directly to it and reflecting the experience of being Black through these lyrics.  

Guyton wrote another song, Heaven Down Here, inspired by everything she saw in the video of George Floyd’s death. 

“That video wrecked me,” Guyton said.

Guyton said from the video to the protests, it made her think of the men in her life-- be it her husband, her brothers or father-- and how they too had been harassed for being men of color. Those moments inspired the songs Black Like Me and Heaven Down Here. 

Allen, Guyton, and Rucker represent a small but mighty modern wave of musicians following those like Charley Pride in the world of Country music. They are doing their part to reimagine what a Country music artist looks like, as those that look like them are not rarely heard and are barely seen. And in the process, they are making room for others to come join them.

The reckoning of race holding the attention of those like Maren Morris, The Middle, and Charlie Worsham, I Hope I’m Stoned, who found ways to express that they were listening. Rucker gave Worsham his props for being willing to acknowledge how the state of Mississippi, until Fall 2020, still had the confederate symbol in its state flag, and speak about it on social media. And Worsham stood in solidarity with those of the Black Lives Matter movement with his performance of Blackbird at the Opry, originally written and performed by The Beatles. Worsham, a native of Mississippi, feels when talking about race it simply is about acknowledging it or lack thereof.

“The devil’s greatest trick is making people believe he doesn’t exist, right? And I think that’s racism’s greatest trick, cause if you can deny it then you don’t have to be culpable in your role in it,” Worsham said.

Morris feels there should not be a problem with supporting those of the BLM movement.

“It’s not profane to say that. You’re not in a cult to say that. You’re not a violent protester or aggravator by saying that. You are literally acknowledging that a group of people who are suffering, matter,” Morris said.

It is this in-depth conversation with some of the biggest names in Country music that gives a new look at the genre. At a time with so much emotion on display in American society, this special gave artists a chance to show the public a little more of what the genre is and who they are. 

“I think it’s so beautiful when I see country artists standing up for human rights because it’s not natural and normal for country artists to take those kinds of stands,” Guyton said.